General
Former ‘Today’ Show Booker Melissa Lonner Alleges Matt Lauer Exposed Himself to Her
Marisa Guthrie, The Hollywood Reporter
On Oct. 23, 2017, Melissa Lonner, a former Today show booker, who left NBC News in 2013, tweeted #MeToo. Her tweet received 19 retweets.
Ronan Farrow on Matt Lauer’s Letter, Tom Brokaw & NBC: ‘Internal Investigations Are Not Investigations’
Elizabeth Wagmeister, Variety
Ronan Farrow responded to Matt Lauer’s letter in defense of rape accusations, for the first time, on Tuesday night at the very first stop for his “Catch and Kill” book tour.
The Hollywood Reporter 100: The Most Powerful People in Entertainment 2019
The Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood, like the rest of America, is increasingly dividing itself into the haves and the have nots. Through mergers (Disney and Fox), buyouts (AT&T gobbling up Time Warner) and an arms race for talent ($250 million for J.J. Abrams?), the upper echelon of the content business has never been more influential or fabulously compensated.
Felicity Huffman starts serving prison time in college scam
Jocelyn Gecker, The Associated Press
“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman — aka prisoner No. 77806-112 — reported Tuesday to a federal prison in California to serve a two-week sentence in a college admissions scandal that ensnared dozens of wealthy mothers and fathers trying to get their children into elite schools.
The Weinstein Co. Gets Closer to Suing Harvey and Bob Weinstein
Eriq Gardner, The Hollywood Reporter
The Weinstein Co. appears to have cleared a big obstacle for suing its former co-chairman Harvey and Bob Weinstein as well as more of the company’s former officers and directors. On Tuesday, the debtor submitted revised papers in Delaware bankruptcy court to hire a law firm in connection with anticipated litigation.
Cuba Gooding Jr.’s plea is overshadowed by 12 new misconduct allegations
Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times
Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. has pleaded not guilty to four misdemeanor counts related to two allegations of sexual misconduct in New York. The “Jerry Maguire” star, 51, already faced a charge of forcible touching related to an incident at a Manhattan bar over the summer.
Hollywood Assistants Speak Out Over Low Pay, Start Hashtag
Katie Kilkenny, The Hollywood Reporter
Twitter may be filled with the grousings of underpaid writers and aspiring writers about their workplaces. But on Sunday and Monday, the tenor of the conversation changed as the social platform lit up with Hollywood assistants explicitly calling out their workplaces, current and former, for what they argued were untenable wages that restrict the pipeline of talent into the entertainment industry.
Elizabeth Warren’s Fundraising Approach Worries Some Donors
Gene Maddaus, Variety
Elizabeth Warren raised nearly $25 million last quarter, and she did it without ever once setting foot in a fancy living room in Bel Air or Brentwood.
Lachlan Murdoch Talks Post-Disney Strategy, Studio Plans and Fox News Infighting
Matthew Belloni, The Hollywood Reporter
Fox News grabs all the headlines (and most of the bottom line, generating about $1 billion a year in profit), but the slimmed-down Fox Corp. under executive chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, 48, and his chairman father, Rupert, 88, is no one-trick pony. Since the sale of most of 21st Century Fox to Disney closed in March, Fox has diversified its remaining broadcast network and sports operation with acquisitions of an online finance brokerage (Credible Labs), a sports gambling venture (Fox Bets) and a fledgling television studio.
Film
The Movie Is Opening Wide. The Screen Is Changing Shape.
Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times
Watching “The Lighthouse,” a claustrophobic new film about a 19th-century lighthouse keeper (Willem Dafoe) and his protégé (Robert Pattinson), you might be forgiven for thinking that you’re peering through an old spyglass. The image is strangely narrow, a rectangle that looks almost taller than it is wide.
Ang Lee and the Uncertain Future of High-Frame-Rate Filmmaking
Keith Phipps, The Ringer
Ang Lee wants you to see his movies more clearly than you’ve ever seen a movie before. Whether via a shot that seems to capture every individual face in a crowded football stadium or the image of an explosion that sends precisely detailed shards of glass and tongues of fire directly at the audience, Lee’s most recent films have found him exploring the outer limits of 21st-century filmmaking technology.
Television
Yes, Broadcast-TV Ratings Are Down. No, the Sky Isn’t Falling — Here’s Why
Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine
Broadcast-TV ratings may again be on the decline — as they have been since… well, for a while! — but that does not mean ABC, CBS et al are about to close up shop and leave your Zenith with nothing but test patterns. And here is the important reason why.
NBC Pulls ‘Sunnsyide’ From Schedule, Replaces it With ‘Will & Grace’ Final Season
Will Thorne, Variety
NBC has decided to kick its freshman comedy “Sunnyside” to its digital platforms and replace it in the schedule with the 11th and final season of “Will & Grace.” The veteran comedy had been due to debut season 11 in early 2020, however, the Peacock has bumped its premiere up to Thursday, Oct. 24 at 9:30 p.m., taking the slot from the Kal Penn comedy.
Reality-TV Show Tries Financial Makeovers for Those With Student Debt
Julia Carpenter, The Wall Street Journal
Reality TV is very America. So is student debt.
‘The O.C.’ Creator Josh Schwartz Still Speaks Fluent Teenager
Rachel Davies, The Wall Street Journal
When The O.C. premiered in the summer of 2003, Josh Schwartz’s skill at writing teen characters was easy to pin on his own proximity to high school. He was just 26—an unusually young age for a showrunner in Hollywood.
As Cord-Cutting Speeds Up, Cable Operators Start to Surrender
Jessica Toonkel, The Information
Braintree Electric Lighting Department, an electric utility in Braintree, Massachusetts, has been selling broadband and television services to its 16,500 customers for roughly two decades. But over the past few years it has been losing a couple of dozen TV customers per month as people opt to watch their favorite TV shows and movies online.
Technology and New Media
Disney Over the Top: Bob Iger Bets the Company (and Hollywood’s Future) on Streaming
Natalie Jarvey, The Hollywood Reporter
During the first weekend of October, Bob Iger took a break from his book tour and fired up an episode of a television series about two years in the making. The Mandalorian won’t be released until November, but Iger had just received the finished first episode of the Jon Favreau space Western, which follows Pedro Pascal’s bounty hunter on a new adventure through the Star Wars universe.
Norah O’Donnell and Susan Zirinsky Ready ‘CBS Evening News’ for Streaming Wars
Brian Steinberg, Variety
One of Norah O’Donnell’s highest-profile moments since taking over as anchor at “CBS Evening News” in July didn’t occur behind the desk of the venerable program.
Inside Apple’s Long, Bumpy Road to Hollywood
Lesley Goldberg and Natalie Jarvey, The Hollywood Reporter
In August 2017, Apple made a move that seemed to signal that the world’s largest company was serious about Hollywood. The tech giant outbid Netflix for a soapy morning-show drama that would mark Jennifer Aniston’s return to television.
‘The West Wing’: HBO Max To Launch Martin Sheen-Fronted Political Drama
Peter White, Deadline Hollywood
HBO Max is set to air The West Wing when it launches next year. Bob Greenblatt, Chairman WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer, revealed the Martin Sheen-fronted political drama will be the latest high-profile series to move to the streaming service.
Ad buyers want free, ad-supported streaming TV services to show them something special
Tim Peterson, Digiday
Free, ad-supported streaming TV services have emerged as the gateway for mid-sized media companies into the connected TV market. However, agency execs have yet to see these services as meriting special consideration when deciding how to spend their clients’ dollars.
Netflix Sued By Panama Papers Law Firm Over ‘The Laundromat’
Tom Grater, Deadline Hollywood
The two partners behind now-dissolved Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co have filed a libel and trademark infringement lawsuit against Netflix over The Laundromat, the streamer’s Panama Papers movie directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Is There Life After ‘League Of Legends’? Riot Bets Big On Its First New Game In 10 Years.
Matt Perez, Forbes
The biggest pitch of his career is just 28 days away, and Riot Games cofounder Marc Merrill is going through the paces in his West Los Angeles office. Showing a company presentation that outlined the plans, he pauses to gauge the reaction of his audience (on this day a lone journalist) to a slide flashing “Riot Game” on the screen, before slowly painting in a yellow “S” to spell out “GameS.”
Chicken Soup For The Soul Entertainment Teams With David Ozer On New Studio
Nellie Andreeva, Deadline Hollywood
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment has teamed with former IDW Entertainment President David Ozer to launch Landmark Studio Group. The new company will be focused on the ownership, development and production of entertainment franchises in both TV and film.
Opinions, Editorials, Perspectives and Research
From Parasite to Hustlers: How 2019 became the year of cinematic class conflict
Christian Holub, Entertainment Weekly
Just a few days after opening in limited theaters in coastal U.S. cities, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is already being hailed as one of the year’s best movies. A common refrain in the glowing reviews is that Parasite succeeds by openly depicting class warfare; EW’s own Leah Greenblatt calls it “a serrating, brilliantly stylized portrait of class and fate and family in modern-day Korea.”
Bombshell’s Oscar Narrative Is Taking Shape—But What About the Fox News of It All?
Yohana Desta, Vanity Fair
The buzz around Bombshell was instant. On Sunday night, the drama about the sexual harassment lawsuit that undid the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes—starring Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson and Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly—made its big debut, generating heat for Theron in particular.
Kevin Feige’s Promotion Means Trump Pal Ike Perlmutter Has Far Less Influence
Tyler Hersko and Christian Blauvelt, IndieWire
Kevin Feige, who revitalized comic book fandom with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been named Chief Creative Officer of Marvel, in addition to his current status as president of Marvel Studios. The move means that all of the company’s key film and television executives will report to Feige, according to Deadline.
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